Tag: downtown

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Development News Politics Transportation

Cincinnati Eliminates Center City Parking Requirements, Neighborhoods Next

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory (D) has approved an amendment to the city’s zoning code that eliminates parking requirements for many residential developments, and substantially reduces them for others.

The ordinance, signed on August 7, tosses out the city’s existing minimum parking requirements within the zoning code’s Downtown Development Overlay Districts, which cover the central business district and historic Over-the-Rhine.

Under the new regulations any residential development with 20 or fewer housing units would not have to provide any parking, while those with more than 20 units would have to provide .75 spaces per housing unit above 20. That means a development with 32 housing units would only need to provide nine parking spaces.

Central Riverfront Garage
Thousands of parking spaces sit largely empty outside of business hours and game days. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

In April 2012, just weeks after UrbanCincy laid the groundwork for reforming the city’s parking policies, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) and Councilmembers Yyvette Simpson (D), Wendall Young (D), Cecil Thomas (D), Chris Seelbach (D), and Laure Quinlivan (D) signed a motion urging the removal of all parking requirements in the central business district and Over-the-Rhine.

While the newly approved ordinance does not go quite that far, its proponents believe it is a step in the right direction.

“The goal of the ordinance is to encourage development in the urban core by permitting developers to determine their own parking needs for downtown developments,” explained Councilwoman Simpson, who is vice chair of council’s Livable Communities Committee. “I firmly believe that the market will work to meet parking demands better than government minimum parking requirements.”

According to Victoria Transport Policy Institute, individual parking spaces add anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 to the cost of a development, and city council believes that by eliminating those mandates that they will make the center city an even more attractive place for private investment.

Mercer Garage
The Mercer Garage in historic Over-the-Rhine is visible from above in May 2013. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

The discussion about parking mandates in the center city has been ongoing for years, and has taken on more prominence as private real estate investment in Over-the-Rhine has surged. UrbanCincy specifically called into question the size of the Mercer Commons parking garage in mid-2012.

The work of eliminating parking requirements, however, may not be finished.

The approved ordinance also calls for the “deregulation of minimum parking requirements in other neighborhoods through the establishment of Urban Parking Overlay Districts in areas to be determined by Council.”

If and when city council decides to move forward with establishing new Urban Parking Overlay Districts, there would be no parking requirements for any use other than residential developments greater than 20 dwelling units. This is slightly different than the modification to the Downtown Development Overlay Districts since they still require some minimal parking requirements for office uses.

One of the earliest beneficiaries of the new standards might be the renovation of 906 Main Street, which would not need to provide any parking spaces under the new standards. The $400,000 project will transform the largely vacant structure into 20 apartments above 6,705 square feet of street-level retail.

The new ordinance took effective immediately.

“This ordinance will encourage private investment by reducing the amount of government regulation,” Simpson continued. “This also encourages a walkable, pedestrian-friendly urban core, which is more attractive to residents and visitors.”

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Business Development News

VIDEO: Progress Continues at $120M Smale Riverfront Park

The progress at the $120 million Smale Riverfront Park continues on-schedule and on-budget, according to the latest update from project manager Dave Prather.

Once the ongoing work is completed, the 45-acre park will be roughly 50 percent complete by 2015. The progress is critical as local officials are scrambling to finish several large development projects prior to the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game to be held at Great American Ball Park.

The two ongoing major phases of work at Smale Riverfront Park, Prather says, will be completed in time for the national spotlight in July 2015 when the MLB All-Star Game comes to Cincinnati.

Since the last project update the roundabout at the foot of the Roebling Suspension Bridge has been completed, allowing motorists to connect in all directions at the odd intersection. Foundation and sewer work has also progressed on the elements of the park now being built immediately west of the bridge.

“When we last left off we were just starting on the construction of our Vine Street carousel and fountain steps project,” Prather explained in the video. “Where before our project, phase one, related to Walnut Street, now we’re building the portion of the project that will complete the frame of the Roebling Suspension Bridge and connect with Vine Street.”

While Prather touts the continued success of the project, continued success may be difficult to achieve.

In March 2013 Prather told UrbanCincy that the ban on federal earmark spending has put future phases of work at the park in jeopardy. In order to make up for the lack of federal dollars, project officials have been relying heavily on state and local contributions. Private donations have also played an enormous role for the project as those dollar totals now exceed the projected totals for private contributions.

Further complicating the project is that it has proceeded along with development of The Banks. That mixed-use development is also running into schedule issues, due to the ban on federal earmarks, as funding has not yet been identified for garage and infrastructure work for future phases to be built adjacent to Paul Brown Stadium. Should that work be delayed past the intended schedule, it may also impact the construction schedule of the western portions of Smale Riverfront Park.

U.S. Congressman Bob Gibbs (R-OH), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, will tour Smale Riverfront Park today at 4:30pm with Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (D) and park officials.

Local leaders are hopeful that the visit will help position the park to receive water infrastructure support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the next Water Resources Development Act, which is expected to be introduced soon.

If all goes according to plan, however, officials believe that Smale Riverfront Park can be completed by mid-2017.

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Business Development News

Final Designs Revealed for $125M Dunnhumby Centre Tower

5th Street Exterior - Image Provided by ImageFiction.

In March of 2015, 700 employees will move into the long-awaited $125 million headquarters of dunnhumbyUSA at Fifth and Race street in downtown Cincinnati. The building is the culmination of a fifteen-year effort to reinvent the area just one block from Fountain Square.

In 1999 the city purchased and demolished a fourteen-story office building and parking garage at the site in anticipation of locating a Nordstrom’s department store downtown. When plans for the store failed to materialize, the site was paved over as surface parking for over a decade.

Last year, dunnhumbyUSA and the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) partnered with the city to develop the block as the new headquarters for the company. Earlier this year, the project received approval on the interior design of the building, which includes open floor plans, and two light wells that will provide natural light during the day through to the bottom floors of the office structure.

Today dunnhumbyUSA presented its exterior designs to the city’s Urban Design Review Board, which makes advisory decisions on approval for landmark structures.

The designs for the new structure were put together by architecture firm Gensler.

The presentation is the culmination of over nine months worth of work on the exterior presentation of the building.

“We designed the building from the inside out. There was a lot of attention paid to the habits and needs of our employees,” Dave Palm, Senior Vice President of Operations with dunnhumbyUSA, told UrbanCincy.

The exterior façades of the building are meant to accentuate the data driven nature of the company and avoid the repetitiveness of patterns, and are made up of an arrangement of white and charcoal grey panel frames. The entrances on each street façade, meanwhile, are accentuated by a cascade of white paneling up the side of the building. This pattern called, “zippers” help break up the massing of the structure.

Other features of the building exterior include outdoor inset areas located on the building’s eighth floor. Further outdoor opportunities are located on the top floor where a significant portion of the floor will be dedicated to outside events.

Although only nine stories in height the floors of the building will be 14 feet high with 20-foot high ceilings for the street-level retail. The building will be the equivalent height of a more traditional 12-story building. Additionally, the three parking levels above the retail level will be convertible to office when the company needs to add room for expansion.

The first level retail section comes in at just under 30,000 square feet and features an all glass street-oriented façade. 3CDC is charged with attracting retail tenants.

“We would prefer to find a local business,” Adam Gelter, 3CDC’s Executive Vice President of Development told UrbanCincy. Gelter went on to say that the retail space can go to one tenant or be broken up into three or four separate retail spaces.

The building is slated to be completed in January 2015 with move-in set for March of the same year.

This project, along with the construction of a 30-story apartment tower and grocer and the continuing plans to construct up to 225 apartments above Macy’s at Fountain Place, is set to transform the long neglected corridors along Sixth Street and Race Street and could spur additional investments in development opportunities in the western portion of the central business district.

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Business News Transportation

Metro Celebrates 40 Years of Transit Service in Cincinnati

Mass transit in Cincinnati has been around for 124 years, but the service provided by Metro is still 40 years young. The first buses in the Queen City arrived in 1926 and had grown in popularity by the 1960s.

During this time, it was managed by a private company named Cincinnati Street Railway. In 1973, the City of Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) partnered to establish Metro in order to improve ridership and the quality of the buses. It was then Metro became the city’s first publicly owned and operated transportation system.

Metro 40th Anniversary Vow Renewal
After meeting on Metro’s first day of service 40 years ago, Captain Rex and Anita Settlemoir renewed their wedding vows on Thursday. Photograph by Paige Malott for UrbanCincy.

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, Metro hosted an afternoon of festivities on Fountain Square. Four buses were displayed along Fifth Street, including a vintage Cincinnati Street Railway bus which had been preserved by the Cincinnati Transit Historical Society.

Local vendors Queen City Bike, Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library, Cincinnati Parks, and the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky (TANK) handed out freebies while Binny and Buddy, mascots for Rumpke and Hoxworth Blood Center, entertained the crowd. Metro’s booth even featured a spin-the-wheel game were participants could win an assortment of products from Metro including hand sanitizer, tote bags, or miniature model Metro buses.

“We’re celebrating 40 years of connecting people and places, supporting economic development and improving the quality of life in Greater Cincinnati,” announced Terry Garcia Crews, CEO of Metro.

In addition to celebrating the organization’s anniversary, a local couple celebrated their 40th anniversary as well. Captain Rex and Anita Settlemoir met while riding Metro in during its first year of service. The Settlemoirs took part in a wedding vow renewal and were escorted to Fountain Square by a Metro*Plus bus; the newest vehicle introduced to the fleet.

“You could just hear the love and see it in their eyes,” smiled Jill Dunne, Public Affairs Manager for Metro.

With 40 being the new 20, the city wonders what’s next for Metro.

“Metro has so many exciting things ahead,” explained Dunne. “Next week, we launch our Metro*Plus rapid bus service in the Montgomery corridor, and we are adding new connections on the west side, as well as more east-west routes.”

“And that is just the start!” Dunne laughed. “I can’t even imagine what our service will look like in 2053. I’m hoping for flying buses.”

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Arts & Entertainment

URBANexchange Returns to the Moerlein Lager House Wednesday evening

Salerno coverThis month’s URBANexchange returns to the Moerlein Lager House biergarten where the beer flows freely and the pretzels are warm and plentiful. The event will be held on Wednesday August 14 from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.

Held monthly, URBANexchange has become the place where urban enthusiasts trade ideas, share a drink and get to know one another.

The event is a casual way to unwind from the day and an opportunity to meet similar like minded people. There is no formal presentation or formal anything, and there is no cover charge for attending.

For this month’s event we are hosting local photographer and fellow blogger Ronny Salerno, who has just released his new book, The Future is One of Mighty Ducks T-Shirts and Discmen. The book features many photographs from his long career of photographing abandoned buildings and theme parks.

Salerno’s photography won him local media attention for capturing the state of many forgotten places throughout the Midwest. His latest photo projects include Suburbia Lost and 224Cincy which can be found on his blog Queen City Discovery. The blog recently celebrated its five year anniversary.

At the event we will hold a drawing for two lucky attendees to win a  free copy of his new book. So come down to the Moerlein Lager House for drinks, fun and a chance to win a book filled with amazing photography!